Fire Song Read Free Page B

her movement seemed surreptitious. She was certain the woman was spying on her. One small part of her mind told her she might be watched secretly out of kindness, for fear that in her despair she might sit too long in the cold or act in other foolish ways to her own harm. Still, the awareness of being always under someone’s eye heightened her anxiety. How could she be sure there were not special dispensations for inducting a nun without a novitiate? How did she know that such a dispensation was not already in the mother superior’s possession?
    She had been weak and idle too long already. She must not play with her father’s right to Trets and Fuveau. She must leave this convent at once.
    The firm decision woke a terror more acute than that of being forced into the order. If she left the convent, she must go to Tour Dur and face Lady Jeannette, and Fenice was quite sure her grandmother would rather have her take the veil, or be dead, than take her back into the household. Lady Jeannette would not care about Trets and Fuveau. She had even sneered at Lady Alys for attending so closely to the management of the keep and lands of Tour Dur itself. It was because Lady Alys was only the daughter of a simple knight from a barbarous country, Lady Jeannette said. Had she been the daughter of a great nobleman, she would not have lowered herself to such common tasks. A true lady should occupy herself only with finer things, like music and poetry and art.
    Fenice burned with shame at the memory of her grandmother’s attacks on her daughter-by-marriage, but Lady Alys herself was not wounded. She laughed behind Lady Jeannette’s back, although she always treated her with the greatest formality and respect and even called her “madam” rather than “mother”. What was important, Lady Alys said, was that the estates were profitable, and Lord Raymond and Lord Alphonse were not constantly interrupted and plagued to death by Lady Jeannette’s demands for attention when they needed to do important business.
    Suddenly Fenice stopped dead in her tracks, realizing that she had seen the gate to her salvation. It was not to Lady Jeannette that Fenice must explain about Lady Emilie’s attempt to keep Trets and Fuveau, but to her grandfather, Lord Alphonse. Her grandfather would not blame her for what had happened. He was as kind to her as was her father. He would caress her and sympathize with her. And he would understand the value of the estates. There would be no need to plead with Lady Jeannette for permission to send a messenger to Bordeaux and be told that a serf woman’s bastard could not possibly have anything important enough to write to merit a special messenger. Lord Alphonse would send the letter at once.
    In her joy, Fenice almost forgot that she would have to get to Tour Dur before she could speak to her grandfather. She hurried back to her chamber, thinking of packing what she would need for a journey, only to be brought up short by seeing still another lay sister carefully folding the clothes she had disarranged when she looked through the chest. Suddenly, it came to Fenice that she could not simply say she wished to leave and expect to be escorted to Tour Dur. Fenice stood staring, her expression so fixed that the lay sister scrambled to her feet and ran over to support her. “You must struggle against this grief,” she murmured. “You should not have gone out. The garden is sad at this time of year. In the spring it will give you joy.”
    The woman’s words now made everything clear. So Fenice was expected to be there in the spring, was she? Silently she released herself from the supporting hand and turned toward her chair near the hearth. The fire had been built up again with fresh logs and was singing merrily, popping and crackling. But although Fenice seated herself and looked into the flames, she no longer needed to lose herself in the fire song. This latest shock had done her almost as much good as her realization